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There is hardly another city in the world where you will find more green areas than in Vienna.

Parks and gardens enrich the city, encouraging to take long walks, hiking and bike tours or simply to enjoy a relaxing time in the nearby Prater, Vienna Woods and Lobau leisure areas. The same is true for the beaches and river banks of Old Danube, the Danube Island or the Danube Canal.

Vienna Convention Bureau to certify Green Meetings(2/3/2012)

As a licensee of the Austrian EcoLogo, it is now authorized not only to assist conferences in matters relating to environmental impact, but also to certify them as "Green Meetings".

The ecological footprint left by a congress has long been an important issue for congress organizers and congress destinations world-wide. For a long time now, the Vienna Tourist Board's Vienna Convention Bureau (VCB) has advocated sustainability and responsible treatment of the environment. Now Nikolaus Berlakovich, Austria's Minister for the Environment, has awarded the VCB the Austrian Green Meetings EcoLogo. This means that the bureau is now licensed to certify as Green Meetings conferences whose organizers take climate protection, regional value-added and social compatibility into account.

"Congresses of any size make an impact on the environment, whether it be due to their energy consumption, waste production, or CO2 emissions. The Vienna Convention Bureau has set itself the task of raising awareness of sustainable action in the conference industry, and supports initiatives and projects involving the themes of green meetings, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. As a licensee of the Austrian EcoLogo, we are not only pointing the way, but also aiming to enhance the competitiveness of Vienna as a congress city in the long term," explains Christian Mutschlechner, Director of the Vienna Convention Bureau.

The Green Meetings EcoLogo was created in the year 2009 by the Austrian Ministry of Life and the Consumers' Association of Austria. In order to obtain certification, an organizer needs a licensee such as the Vienna Convention Bureau who can not only handle the formal certification process, but is also bound by strict environmental protection regulations.

Additional benefit in the long term

Karin Stattmann is the person responsible for handling the certification process through the Vienna Convention Bureau (tel.: +43–1–211 14-528, e-mail: karin.stattmann@vienna.info). Karin is the point of contact for all congress organizers wishing to have their events in Vienna certified as Green Meetings. "We have clearly seen the steadily growing interest of customers, and this will result in other Vienna providers, such as hotels, congress centers and PCOs, qualifying as certification bodies in order to remain competitive," predicts Karin. She is also quick to point out another aspect: "The know-how which international customers gain as a result of the certification process in Vienna is also an excellent basis on which to handle their events abroad in line with the same criteria, thus applying the principles of the Austrian Green Meeting certificate. This additional benefit should not be underestimated - in the long term it can only reinforce the sustainability effect."

Besides the Vienna Convention Bureau, the following companies in Vienna are also certification bodies for Green Meetings:

Testimonials

I would like to thank you for all your help during the planning stages as well as throughout the run up to the show, your help was extremely valuable and much appreciated.

There are not many Convention Bureau’s in cities that work like yourselves and it is refreshing to see that there are convention bureau’s out there that are extremely helpful with international businesses working in their city!

The team at UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry organizes events of varying sizes across the globe. This year alone, we are organizing conferences in Jakarta, Oman, Malmö, Shanghai, Bogota (with a local partner) Seoul and Geneva. We have just successfully terminated a CEO conference in Vienna.

Working with the Vienna Convention Bureau was like a dream come true. The staff are totally dedicated and extremely helpful. Nothing is too much trouble and they all know both their business and the city of Vienna VERY well. I can honestly attribute a large part of the success of the event to the Vienna Convention Bureau.

Thank you again, I sincerely hope to have the chance to work with you again in the future.

FAQs

your event is promoted worldwide - the publication in our online convention calendar is giving you further chances of boosting attendance

if you have your own event website, we automatically create a link to your website

publication of your event is free of charge

The Vienna Convention Bureau requires event data for its annual statistics. Every year we draw up convention, meeting and incentive statistics showing important economic data and trends. We would therefore appreciate your cooperation in registering your event to provide us with a basis for making statistical calculations. If you do not wish your event to be published in the convention calendar please register your event as "confidential".

Public holidays 2016:
New Year's Day: 1 January
Epiphany: 6 January
Easter Monday: 28 March
National Holiday: 1 May
Ascension Day: 5 May
Whit Monday: 16 May
Corpus Christi: 26 May
Assumption of the Virgin Mary: 15 August
National Holiday: 26 October
All Saints' Day: 1 November
Immaculate Conception: 8 December
Christmas Day: 25 December
Boxing Day: 26 December

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